


Anaml lles o rodio'r nos

by JohnAmendAll



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2592872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray receives a mysterious postcard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anaml lles o rodio'r nos

**Author's Note:**

> The title is an entry from [The Proverbs of Wales](https://archive.org/details/proverbswalesac00robegoog) by T. R. Roberts. The translation given is 'Seldom is there any good from wandering at night'.

"Letter for you," Mrs Jones said, setting it down on the breakfast table beside Rachel Defwydd's plate of bacon and eggs.

Ray picked up the envelope and turned it over in her hands. There was no address, and no stamp: only her name.

"But no-one knows I'm staying here," she said, more to herself than Mrs Jones. "It's only because I had that puncture yesterday. Otherwise I'd be on the other side of Dolgellau by now."

Speculation proving fruitless, she opened the envelope. Inside was a picture postcard of a lake surrounded by rocky cliffs, unmarked except for a cross and the simple text "7pm".

"That looks like Llyn Cau," Mrs Jones remarked, looking over Ray's shoulder. "What's that all about, then?"

Ray shook her head. "I wish I knew." She set the mysterious postcard aside and returned to her breakfast. "He didn't post it — he put it through the door. Why didn't he just come in and talk to me?"

"He?" the landlady repeated. From her tone it was clear that she suspected romance, and was determined not to permit it under her roof.

"Or she," Ray said. "Whoever sent it."

Mrs Jones was bent over the teapot, but it was clear she was tending it with less than complete attention. "You don't know who it was who sent you this, then?"

"No," Ray said, firmly suppressing any guesses she might have.

⁂

Ray had left the guesthouse that morning firmly telling herself that she was going to ignore the mysterious postcard, and continue her journey as she'd planned. A few miles down the road, she had conceded that she might, at least, break her journey in the area of Llyn Cau. By the time she parked the Vincent at the end of a rutted lane and set off up the steep mountain trail, she was certainly open to the possibility that she might hang around until the time stated on the postcard. And long before she reached the lake itself, her rational side had thrown in the towel altogether.

She walked along the shore of the lake until she found the spot from which the picture on the postcard had been taken. Then she walked to the rock that had been marked. Close to, it was just a rock, unremarkable in every way. On the postcard, the sky had been clear, the peak of Cader Idris sharply outlined against it, but now the summit was lost in cloud.

Ray decided that, while she certainly wasn't going to stay till evening, it would do no harm to rest for a while beside the lake before setting out on the return journey. She perched on a nearby rock, pulled off her boots and socks, and dipped her feet in the chilly water of the lake. As she waited for her feet to dry again, she looked up at the mountain: the clouds concealing its summit definitely looked lower. By the time her feet were dry and her boots were back on, the banks of cloud were rolling down the mountain slopes, and the trail by which she'd arrived was already lost to view. Ray looked around, but it seemed that no other hikers had been similarly caught: she was alone in this hollow of the hills, with the fog and darkness closing in around her.

For want of anything better to do, Ray spent the next few hours forcing herself to pace to and fro, fighting to keep warm in the cold air and the damp mist. She'd left her helmet with the Vincent and had brought no other hat; there was a scarf in her pocket, but tying that around her head had not made a brilliant substitute.

When the fog suddenly blazed with golden-red light behind her, accompanied by the crackling of burning wood, she instinctively checked her watch. It was exactly seven o'clock. Slowly, she turned. A rock she'd walked past a few seconds before now had a small bonfire burning at its base. And, sitting on a larger rock close at hand was a familiar figure. His face was shadowed by the cream-coloured hat on his head, but the red-handled umbrella in his hand could only have belonged to one person.

Ray slowly approached the fire, and cleared her throat.

"Doctor?" she said.

The man looked up. Without question he was the Doctor, though he looked a few years older than the last time Ray had seen him.

"Rachel Defwydd," he replied. "Whatever brings you here?"

Ray folded her arms. "Don't play games with me, Doctor. You sent me that postcard — only you could have done that. No-one else knew I was staying there."

"I haven't sent you anything." The Doctor poked at the fire with his umbrella. "Or rather, I haven't sent you anything _yet_. You say you received a postcard?"

Ray dug in her jacket and held it out to him. "There."

"Ah." The Doctor turned the card over in his hands, then briefly held it to his ear. "I see. Well, it appears one of us was quite anxious that we should meet here tonight."

"What do you mean, 'one of us'?" Ray asked. "You're the one who sent that card. I didn't know you were going to be here."

The Doctor made no answer.

"All right, I guessed it was you," Ray went on. "And then I thought I might as well..." She groaned. "I might as well hang around for hours on the off-chance that you'd show up. Could I be any more obvious?"

"If you'd like to be, I've got a coat somewhere that would help," the Doctor said. "It might be a bit large for you, though."

Before Ray could answer, she was caught unawares by a sneeze. The Doctor hurried round to her side of the fire.

"On second thoughts, put this on," he said, taking off his own overcoat and draping it round her shoulders. "I presume you're not planning to stay on this mountain all night?"

Ray tried to laugh, but it sounded far more nervous than she'd expected. "They say if you do, you go mad. Or become a poet."

"Well, then, if you want to go, the path's in that direction." The Doctor pointed at a patch of darker shadow in the mist. "Walk in that direction and you'll come to a cairn: that's the start of the path. It's all straightforward from there as long as you remember not to take the right turn by the marsh. If you need a torch there's one in the coat."

Ray showed no sign of following his directions. "What if I don't want to go?"

"Then you had better be prepared."

"Prepared?" Ray looked up at the Doctor. "What for?"

"Whatever comes out of the dark," the Doctor said. "Madness, or poetry. Maybe nothing more than a nasty little cyborg, perhaps something that was ancient and terrible when this galaxy was young." He pointed his umbrella in the opposite direction from the path that led down. "There's something living here, Rachel. Something that does not belong. I thought I'd have a little chat with it."

Ray swallowed. "Then I'm staying with you. Maybe there's something I can do to help."

"Good to have you around." The Doctor gave her an approving smile. "But don't say you weren't warned."


End file.
